Two weeks ago, the American ambassador to Beirut confirmed that Washington is working to make possible the delivery of Egyptian natural gas and Jordanian electricity via Syria to Lebanon, which is suffering from an acute fuel shortage. The Biden administration appears to believe that by doing so the U.S. can compete with Iran—and its proxy, Hizballah—for influence over Lebanon. But, Tony Badran argues, Iranian influence is too deeply entrenched for such a move to make a difference; in fact, it will only make the situation worse:

For the American plan to work, the Biden team would require the cooperation of the Assad regime and would therefore need to waive sanctions on Damascus. In other words, the administration would throw a lifeline to Iran’s other vassal, which Tehran continues to prop up with assistance—ranging from funding to fuel shipments—and the support of a host of militias, led by Hizballah.

Hizballah maintains control of a stretch of territory in western Syria along the border with Lebanon. . . . The area in question is also home to the transit point for the Egyptian natural gas that Lebanon would receive. . . . After years of war, however, the Syrian section of the pipeline likely requires repairs. . . . That is to say, this initiative will require investment in Syria, which is under U.S. sanctions. . . . Nevertheless, [the U.S. ambassador] expressed the administration’s determination to work around this hurdle: “There is a will to make this happen.”

In other words, the Biden administration is looking to secure investment to rehabilitate infrastructure in Syria. This is on top of the transit fees Assad will demand and, presumably, collect.

Washington’s initiative is a positive development for both Hizballah and its Syrian ally—Assad will receive sanctions waivers and potential investment, while Hizballah maintains its position on both sides of the border.

Contributing to the Jewish state’s current controversy over efforts to reform its judicial system, observes Peter Berkowitz, is its lack of a written constitution. Berkowitz encourages Israelis to seek a way out of the present crisis by looking to the founding document they do have: the Declaration of Independence.

The document does not explicitly mention “democracy.” But it commits Israel to democratic institutions not only by insisting on the equality of rights for all citizens and the establishment of representative government but also by stressing that Arab inhabitants would enjoy “full and equal citizenship.”

The Israeli Declaration of Independence no more provides a constitution for Israel than does the U.S. Declaration of Independence furnish a constitution for America. Both documents, however, announced a universal standard. In 1859, as civil war loomed, Abraham Lincoln wrote in a letter, “All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”

Something similar could be said about Ben Gurion’s . . . affirmation that Israel would be based on, ensure, and guarantee basic rights and fundamental freedoms because they are inseparable from our humanity.

Perhaps reconsideration of the precious inheritance enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence could assist both sides in assuaging the rage roiling the country. Bold and conciliatory, the nation’s founding document promises not merely a Jewish state, or a free state, or a democratic state, but that Israel will combine and reconcile its diverse elements to form a Jewish and free and democratic state.